Canadian Lawyer

28 M A R C H 2 0 1 7 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m Pretty soon afterwards, company orga- nization and share ownership questions tend to bubble up, according to Weinstein. "I've had people who wanted to give the first developer five per cent of the busi- ness, and I have to remind them that there is only 100 per cent to go around. If every new hire gets five per cent, then you're limited to 20 people," she says. "Most of our clients are very smart engineers, and some of them have good business skills, but a lot of them are doing it for the first time and don't have a good grasp of how things work." Weinstein says the firm is prepared to defer fees for months and even years while companies find their feet, and when they do send a bill, they don't do much chasing. "We're fairly relaxed about getting paid in the early going," she says. In fact, the firm runs on the assumption that some never will pay for services. "We do a lot of writeoffs," Weinstein says. "We're trying to emulate our clients: If they have no money, then they don't have to pay us. If they raise some, they can pay us then. This is like our R&D. We're trying people out and seeing what sticks. About five per cent will turn into stellar clients, but even then, the bulk will pay our fees." Parmar says founders value that kind of commitment, and he says he's still usually the one chasing up legal bills internally to make sure they're paid. "I have tons of lawyer buddies, so I know that's not normal," he says. "Once you have any kind of success, you have an elephant's memory for that sort of thing. It's a fairly small startup community in Vancouver and we talk." Smith says part of the reason he left a larger full-service firm was so that he wouldn't have to justify his client choices to the rest of his partners. At his previous firm, one client spent years on the finance department's blacklist for late or non-pay- ment of bills. "He calls up out of the blue and says he's hit it big. He's sitting on a term sheet from a U.S. multinational to buy the company. All of a sudden, I'm a hero for having hung on to him," Smith says. "Larger firms are starting to look at cost recovery and fee generation on a what-have-you-done-for- me-lately basis, but I've got a lot more flex- ibility over fee arrangements and the risk I'm prepared to take on a return in helping companies grow." At Oslers, Bayne says his firm is unique among Bay Street giants for its willingness to play the long game on his clients. He worked closely with Toronto partner Geoff Taber to create the emerging companies practice group in the late 2000s with a view to getting ahead of the next startup wave following the global financial crisis. Bayne likes to think of the group's cli- ents as a single entity, with short-term loss- es kept to a minimum until the big success stories start to pay for the rest. "You could look at any one file and say it didn't return very well, but it can turn out to be a rounding error when you look at the whole portfolio," he says. "We're using leverage, repeatable processes and technol- ogy to make ourselves more efficient and ensure that we're driving down internal costs as much as we can. The rest of the firm is taking notice of how we do things." The watershed moment came in 2013 when Vancouver-based client Hootsuite, REACH ONE OF THE LARGEST LEGAL AND BUSINESS MARKETS IN CANADA! AVAILABLE ONLINE AND IN PRINT With more than 300,500 page views and 100,000 unique visitors monthly canadianlawlist.com captures your market. FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT Colleen Austin: T: 416.649.9327 E: colleen.austin@thomsonreuters.com www.canadianlawlist.com Untitled-6 1 2017-02-09 3:12 PM

• Cover